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Well temperatures are falling and an amazing amount of snow has fallen across the country.  Poor Buffalo, New York, has been particularly singled out for some of the most intense lake-effect snow to be seen in some time.  Temperatures across the nation seem to be below normal.  Winter seems on the way and eager to get to work.  So we at Blog Wyrm hope that everyone remains warm and safe and is able to enjoy the charms of what can be a difficult season.

This week’s issue will hopefully help your enjoyment as the last few days for really comfortable outdoor activities dwindle.  In About Comics, the second part of the Wild, Weird West covers the really nice work done by Visionary Comics on their Deadlands storyline.  Aristotle to Digital cracks a smile this week with a fun and humorous discussion about one area that artificial intelligence clearly hasn’t been able to come even remotely close to what a human can do – telling a joke.  The column in Common Cents considers the question of what exactly is insurance and reflects on who might benefit by confusing matters of ‘if’ with matters of ‘when’.  Finally, Under the Hood starts a detailed look at time development of quantum systems with a general presentation of the evolution operator.

Enjoy and stay warm.

Well, issue 3 has gone more smoothly than the other two and the Blog Wyrm staff looks like it might actually be settling into a routine here.  For a while, I was worried that we had bit off too much.  On the whole, whether we make our weekly delivery schedule is a trivial problem and one that is entirely self-imposed.  That said, we are mindful that we wouldn’t likely have the freedom to pursue this enterprise without the numerous men and women who served in our armed forces.

As relatively recent immigrants (one of us is third generation, the other first), we don’t have a great deal of familial experience with military service.  My mother and most of her siblings served in some fashion during World War II, and my father served stateside during the Korean War.  When I was growing up, my cousins and I would gather around my Uncle Walt and he would show us his scars where four German bullets entered and three came back out – grim souvenirs of his service in the European theater.

I was too stupid to say thank you as a kid but as I got older and realized the pain and fear he must have gone through on the battlefield I made it a point to call my Uncle Walt each Veteran’s Day just to thank him. He’s since passed away so let me direct my thanks to all those who served.

In this issue, we have the first of a three-part installment on the modern western-horror comic in About Comics.  Aristotle to Digital weighs in the pronouncement by Elon Musk that artificial intelligence is a demon waiting for us to lose control. Common Cents discusses the ideas of comparative advantage in the work place and beyond. And in our final column, Under the Hood presents a fairly novel way of teaching about abstract vector spaces using Fourier series in wxMaxima.

Enjoy.

Welcome to our second issue.  The posts this week are a bit longer.  Perhaps too long as it was a real effort getting them all out the door.  Nonetheless we did it.  This week we have an article on the three best ways to screw up a comic story in About Comics, We explore some philosophical implications of object orient programming in Aristotle to Digital.  Common Cents features a discussion of a provocative question concerning wealth. Finally, Under the Hood discusses applications of the Helmholtz theorem to the physical understanding of the Maxwell’s equations.  Quite the eclectic mix! Let no one say we don’t deliver on our tagline.

Happy Halloween and welcome Autumn!  While it is true that each season ushers in changes and the promise of things to come, Autumn has a particular flavor all of its own.  Lots of interesting and exciting things happen in the fall months.  Kids begin to really buckle down in school. The leaves change color and the weather has a mind of its own.  Lazy summer months fade into memory as bustling activities and preparations for the coming Winter take place.

It seems appropriate that this time of change ushers in a bold experiment on our part – our blogzine.  What is a blogzine? To us it is more than a blog or a set of blogs.  It is a collection of columns, launched on a weekly basis every Friday, with a common look and feel that is designed to make you feel like you are reading a magazine.  But unlike the ‘professional’ media outlets our blogzine covers items near and dear to us, which are off the beaten track and hopefully interesting to you.  We look forward to reading your comments and your feedback.